Some landlords appear to believe that maximising your income is simply about increasing your rental rates.

While that may, of course, have an important role to play, in reality you may be constrained by the average rental rates for the type of property you have in the area where it is located.

Therefore, you might want to think a little bit laterally about other opportunities.

Offer added value services

Some tenants might appreciate you offering them additional features such as guaranteed car parking locally, laundry services and perhaps regular cleaning.

These are all things you could charge for and hopefully make a healthy profit on.

There may be many other options in this area, perhaps even including your provision of certain home entertainment systems and so on. Be cautious though about providing very expensive equipment, as this may be an issue in terms of your contents insurance and associated risks of theft or damage etc.

Charge for late payment of rent

If your tenants pay their rent late, that is costing you money one way or another either in lost interest or in your time and effort in chasing up payment.

You should make clear in your rental agreement that late payment will incur charges.

Make sure though that your tenants understand and sign for this in advance. Don’t just a spring it on them as a surprise – unless you enjoy controversy and friction.

Review your insurance costs

Look around to find the best landlords insurance quote possible – or at least one that is both suitable and cost effective for you. At Cover4LetProperty we might be able to help you achieve exactly that.

Remember that sometimes maximising your income can be at least in part related to reducing your expenditure.

Avoid unnecessarily lengthy gaps between tenancies

When your property is unoccupied it is typically earning you nothing at all in rental income.

Sometimes you may have little or no alternative but to have gaps between tenants; however, in some cases this happens simply due to very poor planning on the part of the landlord concerned.

So, whenever you know that tenants will be vacating, act immediately to secure new tenants and don’t wait until the last minute before doing things such as advertising etc.

Investigate deposit accounts opportunities

Although it has to be admitted that these days it is difficult to find higher interest rates for very short term deposits, nevertheless, rates may vary significantly between banks and other similar institutions.

So, try to put any surplus cash into an account that offers a higher interest rate than a current account but which at the same time guarantees you fast access in an emergency.

The additional money generated may not be huge but every penny counts!